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In Training!

by Mary Stella on July 2, 2014

I am officially declaring myself in training. Today I signed up for a FoamGlow 5K event in the Miami area. It takes place at night and participants dress all in white, or in as much white as they want and take to the track. At intervals around the track, they run/walk through Foam Zones where they will be sprayed with brightly colored foam that will show up under the black lights stationed around the track. Glow in the dark fitness experience!

Honestly, it sounds like a big old pile of messy, colorful fun with a dance party after. I can’t wait! Already a group of friends have registered too so we’re participating as a team. I’m sure we’ll come up with a great team name.

This isn’t a big time race. In fact, I don’t think competitors are even timed. That doesn’t matter. I saw another friend post that she was doing this event and it immediately caught my interest. I’m setting a goal for myself to not only participate, but to also do the 5K in a faster time than I did the first one I did last January. (Or was it February?) I wanted to commit to an event and put myself into training for it. I think the motivation will do me good. In fact, this morning when the alarm went off at 6 a.m. and I was tempted to hit the snooze button and sleep a little longer, I sat up and said to myself, “Nope. You’re in training. Get going.”

I rolled out of bed, dressed, leashed Nat and Pyxi and headed out for a good 45 minute walk. We probably did close to two miles. For that distance, 45 minutes is not at all impressive. In my defense, the dogs need to stop, sniff, do their business, stop and sniff some more. It’s not like they’re power-walking with me, you know? They tend to take their time about things unless I regularly urge them along. Still, a brisk almost-two-miles on a warm, humid morning wasn’t bad.

It might sound strange, but the “in training” mindset helps. In taking inventory of my recent efforts, I’ve slacked off a little on my exercise regime. I’m getting myself back on track – by committing to actually get on to a track and walk, jog, dance through blasts of day glo foam. Hey, if it keeps me moving in the next few months when the heat will make it easy for me to be lazy, it’s a win. I think it will also help me if I’m tempted to veer off of my food plan, too. The more weight I lose, the better I’ll feel and the better I’ll be able to move.

That’s the plan anyway. In the meantime, just thinking about doing the event makes me smile. I’m sure it will be epic!

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3 responses to “In Training!”

I walked the Country Music half-marathon at the end of April, & I started training for it in January. I have a big goal – walk 1500 miles in 2014. Being in training & having a smaller goal, the half, really helped me a lot. There were a lot of days where I would have talked myself out of my lunch time walk because I was feeling lazy or just not in the mood, but I reminded myself I needed to stick to my training as much as possible if I was going to do a 13.1 mile walk in the time allotted (4 hours; I came in at 3 hours 6 minutes).

Once I finished the race, I found that my walking distance, speed & regularity started slacking. I put myself back on a modified version of my training schedule, & I’m not pushing as much for distance, but I am pushing myself to make sure I get in the walking I need to do in order to reach my 1500 mile goal by the end of the year.

But … it really does help to have the smaller goals … a 5K, a 10K, a half marathon. Or something else depending on your exercise preference. I’m contemplating trying a (very short) triathlon at some point in the foreseeable future … I like biking, swimming & walking. The cross training would be excellent for my physically, & shorter distances in each category mean I won’t get as bored training for them. Boredom was my biggest challenge training for the half marathon. After about 8 miles, no matter what music or audio book I had going, I’d really start to get bored. The race was different, and when I had a walking partner it was different, but really, 6 – 8 miles is my ideal “long” distance for a walk.

Anyway … it makes complete sense to have a goal to train for. it’s not necessarily about winning the race as it is making sure you can participate in a safe, healthy manner & have a way to test your progress.

Go you! The run you are planning for sounds like lots of fun. And I think you’ll find that it will help add just that extra little boost of motivation. (By the same token, any reasonable training plan will be reasonably flexible. I missed a couple of weeks of training a month before my race due to illness, and I missed days off and on throughout the training process because of various unavoidable issues. I was still able to shift things around and recover and get back to where I needed to be. If you are as consistent as you can be, then the unavoidable disruptions are pretty easy to recover from.)

I suppose it depends on the race, but if there’s a time frame to the various segments you can figure out if it’s walk friendly. The half marathon completion time limit was, I think either 4 hours or 4.5 hours. If you can walk a 3.5 mile per hour pace, you can finish the half in the allotted time frame (13.1 miles). And I suspect many, MANY people walk/jog or just walk. I sometimes have twinges with my knee, and I spend most of my time walking. I need to work on open water swimming, and I know with practice I can bike for a reasonable distance.

I started just generally googling triathlons (there are so many different variations on lengths; I don’t have any aspiration to do an iron man, but some of the shorter distances sound very doable), and googling triathlons in my area. I found one that is held every year, 10 miles from my house in a state park, that utilizes a swimming pool for (I think) a 400 meter swim, a 10 mile bike ride on a flat course inside the park, and a 2 or 3 mile walk/run course again inside the park. I think that sounds like a perfect starting triathlon for a novice. And it’s in May, so I have lots of time to do training.

Thanks for the kind words. I never would have imagined I could do a half marathon. I hit the finish line & started crying like a baby. It hit me out of the blue like that.

I’m willing to bet with a little bit of research, you can find a triathlon that perfectly suits your capabilities, interests, & that let you perform well while taking care of your knee. Let me know what you find out! Go YOU!